Method and apparatus for collecting and providing information of interest to user regarding multimedia content

ABSTRACT

A method of collecting information of interest to a user regarding multimedia content is described. The method may include receiving first content about the information of interest to the user among the multimedia content, collecting metadata of the first content by using a uniform resource identifier (URI) of the first content, extracting at least one first information object including a schema according to a search category from the metadata, and storing the first information object in a first database.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No.10-2008-0087438, filed on Sep. 4, 2008, in the Korean IntellectualProperty Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in itsentirety by reference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

One or more embodiments relate to a method and apparatus for collectingand providing information of interest to a user, about multimediacontent.

2. Description of the Related Art

Various types of content are continuously provided to users via avariety of devices and services in this digital multimedia era. Usersselect necessary information from various pieces of multimedia contentinformation. At times, a need arises to record a corresponding documentso that related content can be reproduced in the future.

In this case, according to the related art, various types of devices forreproducing multimedia store related content in a storage space thereof,or record the corresponding content in a space, such as a blog that ispart of a social network via an Internet service.

For example, if content of interest or particular websites are found bysurfing the Internet on a PC, a preference function of an Internetbrowser is used to store a corresponding webpage in a hard disk of thePC, which is a local storage medium. Alternatively, a bookmark serviceover the Internet is used to register a preferred site in an account.Similarly, content of the corresponding webpage is copied to a blogconnected over the Internet. In the meantime, a rich site summary, aresource description framework (RDF) site summary, or a really simplesyndication (RSS) reader is used to obtain periodically distributeddocuments such as news.

As another example, if desired goods are found from an Internet shoppingmall, the desired goods are stored in a shopping list of a shopping mallsite such as a shopping basket. Alternatively, a broadcast of interestis recorded while watching television (TV) and a digital camera such asa mobile phone camera is used to capture an image in daily life.

SUMMARY

One or more embodiments include a method and apparatus for collectingand providing information of interest to a user by integrating,administrating, and analyzing the information of interest to the user.

Additional aspects and/or advantages will be set forth in part in thedescription which follows and, in part, will be apparent from thedescription, or may be learned by practice of the invention.

To achieve the above and/or other aspects, one or more embodiments mayinclude a method of collecting information of interest to a user, aboutmultimedia content, the method including: receiving first content aboutthe information of interest to the user among the multimedia content;collecting metadata of the first content by using a uniform resourceidentifier (URI) of the first content; extracting at least one firstinformation object including a schema according to a search categoryfrom the metadata; and storing the first information object in a firstdatabase.

The method may further include: collecting web data from an externalmultimedia service including a web service by using a uniform resourcelocator (URL); extracting at least one second information object fromthe collected web data; storing the extracted second information objectand additional information about the second information object in asecond database; and mapping the first information object to the secondinformation object.

The mapping of the first information object to the second informationobject may include: comparing a URI of the first information object witha URI of the second information object; if the second information objectwhich is the same as the first information object does not existed inthe second database, registering the first information object in a firstdatabase; if the second information object which is the same as thefirst information object exists in the second database, connecting thefirst information object to the second information object; and storingat least one piece of additional information about the secondinformation object and the first information object in the firstdatabase together.

The first information object and the second information object mayinclude at least one piece of goods information, area information, andbroadcast program information.

The collecting of the web data may include: periodically collecting webdata in order to obtain the additional information about the firstinformation object and the second information object, wherein themapping of the first information object to the second information objectincludes: periodically updating the first information object and thesecond information object based on the collected web data.

A bookmark may be used to receive the first content by using arepresentational state transfer (REST) or a simple object accessprotocol (SOAP), the metadata of the first content is captioninformation, and a keyword extraction, a tag analysis extraction, or asemantic extraction of a micro format is used to extract the firstinformation object.

To achieve the above and/or other aspects, one or more embodiments mayinclude a method of providing information of interest to a user via amultimedia device, the method including: receiving an index of a firstinformation object about the information of interest to the user;searching for the first information object from a first databaseaccording to the received index; reading at least one piece ofadditional information mapped to the first information object from thefirst database; selecting additional information according to the typeof the multimedia device from the at least one piece of additionalinformation; and transmitting the selected additional information to themultimedia device.

The method may further include: converting the selected additionalinformation into additional information having a format according to thetype of the multimedia device, wherein the transmitting of the selectedadditional information includes: transmitting the converted additionalinformation to the multimedia device.

The transmitting of the selected additional information to themultimedia device may include: analyzing the first information objectstored in the first database; calculating a user's preference from thefirst information object; and transmitting a third information objecthaving the user's preference greater than a predetermined thresholdvalue among at least one second information object which is extractedfrom web data and stored in the second database that stores additionalinformation about the at least one second information object, andadditional information about the third information object according tothe calculated user's preference to the multimedia device.

A REST or a SOAP may be used to search for the first information object.

To achieve the above and/or other aspects, one or more embodiments mayinclude an apparatus for collecting information of interest to a user,about multimedia content, the apparatus including: a bookmark inputtingunit inputting first content about the information of interest to theuser among the multimedia content; a metadata collecting unit collectingmetadata of the first content by using a URI of the first content; aninformation object extracting unit extracting at least one firstinformation object including a schema according to a search categoryfrom the metadata; and a first database storing the first informationobject in a first database.

The apparatus may further include: a web information collecting unitcollecting web data from an external multimedia service including a webservice by using a URL; a web information analyzing unit extracting atleast one second information object from the collected web data; asecond database storing the extracted second information object andadditional information about the second information object in a seconddatabase; and an information object identifying unit mapping the firstinformation object to the second information object.

The information object identifying unit may compare a URI of the firstinformation object with a URI of the second information object, if thesecond information object which is the same as the first informationobject does not existed in the second database, registers the firstinformation object in a first database, if the second information objectwhich is the same as the first information object exists in the seconddatabase, connects the first information object to the secondinformation object, and stores at least one piece of additionalinformation about the second information object and the firstinformation object in the first database together.

The first information object to the second information object mayinclude at least one piece of goods information, area information, andbroadcast program information.

The web information collecting unit may periodically collect web data inorder to obtain the additional information about the first informationobject and the second information object, the information objectidentifying unit periodically updating the first information object andthe second information object based on the collected web data.

The bookmark inputting unit may use a bookmark through a REST or a SOAP,the metadata of the first content is caption information, and theinformation object extracting unit uses a keyword extraction, a taganalysis extraction, or a semantic extraction of a micro format.

To achieve the above and/or other aspects, one or more embodiments mayinclude an apparatus of providing information of interest to a user viaa multimedia device, the apparatus including: an index inputting unitreceiving an index of a first information object about the informationof interest to the user; a bookmark searching unit searching for thefirst information object from a first database according to the receivedindex; an additional information reading unit reading at least one pieceof additional information mapped to the first information object fromthe first database; an information selecting unit selecting additionalinformation according to the type of the multimedia device from the atleast one piece of additional information; and a transmitting unittransmitting the selected additional information to the multimediadevice.

The apparatus may further include: a format converting unit convertingthe selected additional information into additional information having aformat according to the type of the multimedia device, wherein thetransmitting unit transmits the converted additional information to themultimedia device.

The apparatus may further include: a bookmark recommending unitincluding: an information object analyzing unit analyzing the firstinformation object stored in the first database; a preferencecalculating unit calculating a user's preference from the firstinformation object; and an information extending unit transmitting athird information object having the user's preference greater than apredetermined threshold value among at least one second informationobject which is extracted from web data and stored in the seconddatabase that stores additional information about the at least onesecond information object, and additional information about the thirdinformation object according to the calculated user's preference, to themultimedia device.

The bookmark searching unit may use a REST or a SOAP.

To achieve the above and/or other aspects, one or more embodiments mayinclude a computer readable recording medium storing a program forexecuting the method of collecting information of interest to a user,about multimedia content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and/or other aspects and advantages will become apparent and morereadily appreciated from the following description of the embodiments,taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings of which:

FIG. 1 illustrates an integrated administration service for informationof interest independent of each device and service, according to anembodiment;

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method of collecting information ofinterest to a user, about multimedia content, according to anembodiment;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a process of identifying informationobjects obtained from web data included in the method of collectinginformation of interest to the user, according to an embodiment;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing a user withinformation of interest via a multimedia device, according to anembodiment;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an apparatus for collecting information ofinterest to a user, about multimedia content, according to anembodiment; and

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an apparatus for providing information ofinterest to a user via a multimedia device, according to an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments, examples of whichare illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein like referencenumerals refer to the like elements throughout. Embodiments aredescribed below to explain the present invention by referring to thefigures.

FIG. 1 illustrates an integrated administration service for providinginformation of interest independent of each device and service,according to an embodiment.

To record content that a user desires to use in the future, the relatedart method distributes and stores individual information of interest ineach device such as a PC, a TV, a mobile phone, and the like or in eachservice domain such as a shopping mall site, etc. In addition, if theamount of information of interest increases by geometric progression,the related method stores the information of interest in a list, whichis inconvenient. For example, it is not easy to visit a specificshopping mall site having preferred goods checked among numerousshopping malls over the Internet since it is required to visit allshopping mall sites. Furthermore, although a bookmark function of anInternet browser is used to browse desired information, since data isstored in the form of a list, it becomes more difficult to browse thedesired information as the amount of data increases.

Also, since information is continuously updated, a user needs to updatepreviously stored information of interest each time. For example, whenthe user attempts to visit a previously bookmarked site, the user maynot find a corresponding webpage due to a change in the address of thepreviously bookmarked site, or when the user attempts to purchase goodsstored in a shopping basket of an Internet shopping mall, a new model ofthe goods may already be released.

Therefore, one or more embodiments include a method and apparatus forcollecting and providing up-to-date information of interest to the userby collecting, administering, and periodically analyzing distributedinformation of interest to the user. Referring to FIG. 1, theinformation of interest to the user is collected from various types ofmultimedia devices such as a TV, a PC, a mobile device, and the like,and is stored as a database so that multimedia devices can independentlyshare the information of interest to the user. The collected informationof interest to the user is recognized as various information objects,such as information about goods to be purchased via a shopping mall,area information such as an address and a telephone number, etc.,broadcast program information obtained from an electronic program guide(EPG), and the like, and is stored. In addition, a process ofrecommending information of interest based on a user preference forextended information and automatically updating the user-information ofinterest is performed. In accordance with the information of interestintegrated administration service, the user can search for his/herpreference information by using any devices and up-to-date accessrelated information.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method of collecting information ofinterest to the user about multimedia content, according to anembodiment.

Referring to FIG. 2, the method of collecting information of interest tothe user about multimedia content includes operation 210 of receivingfirst content about the information of interest to the user, among themultimedia content, operation 220 of collecting metadata of the firstcontent by using a uniform resource identifier (URI) of the firstcontent, operation 230 of extracting at least one first informationobject including a schema according to a search category from themetadata, and operation 240 of storing the first information object in afirst database.

In operation 210, content about the information of interest to the useris received. For example, a web page including content of interest maybe selected from web pages being searched by a user via an Internetbrowser. Alternatively, a program being broadcast may be selected andrecorded or a scene of the program may be captured while the userwatches TV. Such operations are designated as a bookmark. In thisregard, a representational state transfer (REST) or a simple objectaccess protocol (SOAP), which is a web standard protocol, may be used.

In operation 220, the URI of the received content is used to collectmetadata. The metadata includes all types of metadata included indigital multimedia, for example, caption information provided in digitalbroadcasting. The caption information includes both open captioninformation and closed caption information.

In operation 230, a first information object is extracted from thecollected metadata. An information object is used in various types ofterminals and services. The information object includes a specificschema such as goods, area name, broadcast, and the like, and has avariety of definitions according to application services. Theinformation object is categorized and administered to enable it to besearched for according to standards used by various types of devicessuch as an Internet device, a navigation device, a TV, etc. To extractthe first information object, a key word is extracted from the metadatasuch as a caption, an inner tag of an extensible markup language (XML)is analyzed and the information object is recognized, or a meaning basedsemantic is extracted from a micro format. The micro format may refer toan information formatting method of processing information in the formof metadata by using a web page and a hypertext markup language (HTML)or extensible HTML (XHTML), such as rich site summary (RSS), resourcedescription framework (RDF) site summary, or really simple syndication(RSS).

In operation 240, the first information object is stored in the firstdatabase. The first information object is at least one of a goodsinformation object, an area information object, and a broadcastinformation object extracted from content that is of interest to theuser. The first database for storing the first information object isreferred to as a bookmark storage unit. The bookmark storage unit storesa URI bookmarked by the user and various pieces of additionalinformation, and the extracted information object.

In the present embodiment, the information of interest to the user isintegrated and stored in a database that is a bookmark storage unit,independent of particular devices or services. Although the user selectsand bookmarks a web page, a TV program, and the like, an address of thebookmarked web page or a snap shot of the TV program is not stored butat least one information object such as goods, area, broadcast, and thelike is extracted and stored so that the user can share theabove-described information objects.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a process of identifying informationobjects obtained from web data included in the method of collectinginformation of interest to the user, according to an embodiment.

Referring to FIG. 3, the process of identifying information objectsobtained from web data included in the method of collecting informationof interest to the user includes operation 310 of collecting the webdata from an external multimedia service including a web service byusing a uniform resource locator (URL), operation 320 of extracting atleast one second information object from the collected web data,operation 330 of storing the extracted second information object andadditional information about the second information object in a seconddatabase, and operations 340 through 370 of mapping a previously storedfirst information object to the second information object.

The mapping of the first information object to the second informationobject includes operation 340 of comparing a URI of the firstinformation object with a URI of the second information object and, ifthe second information object is not the same as the first informationobject stored in the second database, operation 350 of registering thefirst information object in a first database, and if the secondinformation object is the same as the first information object stored inthe second database, operation 360 of connecting the first informationobject to the second information object, and operation 370 of storing atleast one piece of additional information about the second informationobject and the first information object in the first database.

In contrast with the first information object extracted from the contentbookmarked by the user, the second information object includes a goodsinformation object, an area information object, a broadcast informationobject, etc, extracted from the web data obtained via the externalmultimedia service. The second database for storing the secondinformation object is referred to as a knowledge base. The knowledgebase may be automatically built by storing the second information objectand the additional information, or may be built in cooperation withanother service.

The at least one second information object extracted from the web dataand the additional information may be stored in the knowledge base. Inthis regard, an operation of identifying the first information objectselected according to the information of interest to the user from theknowledge base is needed. Therefore, the first information object iscompared to the second information object stored in the knowledge base(operation 340), and if they are the same, the first information objectis connected to the second information object (operation 360), and theadditional information stored in the knowledge base and the firstinformation object of the information of interest are stored in abookmark storage unit (operation 370). If the information objectidentical to the first information object of the information of interestis not previously stored in the knowledge base, the first informationobject is registered as the second information object and a URI isprovided to the registered second information object (operation 350).

Thereafter, the knowledge base periodically collects web data in orderto obtain the additional information about the first information objectand the second information object, and periodically updates the firstinformation object and the second information object that are mappedbased on the collected web data. Therefore, the additional informationabout the first information object is automatically updated.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing a user withinformation of interest to the user via a multimedia device, accordingto an embodiment.

Referring to FIG. 4, the method of providing the user with informationof interest via the multimedia device includes operation 410 ofreceiving an index of a first information object about the informationof interest, operation 420 of searching for the first information objectfrom a first database according to the received index, operation 430 ofreading at least one piece of additional information mapped to the firstinformation object from the first database, operation 440 of selectingadditional information according to the type of the multimedia devicefrom the at least one piece of additional information, and operation 450of transmitting the selected additional information to the multimediadevice.

In operation 410, a bookmark index is received to search for the firstinformation object relating to content bookmarked by the user. In thepresent embodiment, a search index for searching for stored personalbookmarks is generated, and an information object based search issupported. In operation 420, the first information object is searchedfrom the first database that is a bookmark storage unit by using a RESTor SOAP, which is a web standard protocol. In operation 430, variouspieces of additional information that are mapped to the firstinformation object, such as goods, an area, broadcast, etc., are read.In operation 440, one of the at least one piece of additionalinformation is selected. The selected additional information isterminal-oriented information since the type of the multimedia device isa television, a PC, a mobile phone, a navigation device, and the like.In the present embodiment, the method of providing the user withinformation of interest may further include an operation of convertingthe selected additional information into additional information in aformat that varies according to the type of multimedia device. Inoperation 450, the converted additional information may be transmittedto the corresponding device.

For example, in the case of the navigation device, additionalinformation about the area may be selected and transmitted. In the caseof the mobile phone, a telephone call may be transmitted. When the useruses the Internet, order information for the goods of a correspondingonline shopping mall may be provided, and a related Internet eventcoupon may be issued.

As described above, the information of interest to the user may bestored in an integration database that is the bookmark storage unitindependent of the multimedia device or service, and at least one ofgoods, an area information, and a broadcast program information objectextracted from metadata relating to a bookmarked web page or TVbroadcast is stored in the integration database so that the user caneasily search for bookmarked information at anytime and anywhere in viewof a terminal.

In another embodiment, information other than the bookmarked informationmay be recommended and provided to the user. To be more specific, thefirst information object of the information of interest to the userstored in the bookmark storage unit may be analyzed and a user'spreference may be calculated from the first information object. The usermay be provided with a third information object and additionalinformation about the third information object according to thecalculated user's preference. The third information object has theuser's preference greater than a predetermined threshold value among thesecond information object stored in the knowledge base.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an apparatus 500 for collecting informationof interest to the user, about multimedia content, according to anembodiment.

Referring to FIG. 5, the apparatus 500 for collecting information ofinterest to the user about multimedia content, includes a bookmarkinputting unit 510 for inputting first content about the information ofinterest to the user among the multimedia content, a metadata collectingunit 520 for collecting metadata of the first content by using a URI ofthe first content, an information object extracting unit 530 forextracting at least one first information object including a schemaaccording to a search category from the metadata, and a bookmark storingunit 540 for storing the first information object.

The apparatus 500 for collecting information of interest to the userabout multimedia content, further includes a web information collectingunit 550 for collecting web data from an external multimedia serviceincluding a web service by using a URL, a web information analyzing unit560 for extracting at least one second information object by analyzingthe collected web data, a knowledge base 570 for storing the extractedsecond information object and additional information about the secondinformation object, and an information object identifying unit 580mapping the stored first information object to the second informationobject.

The information object identifying unit 580 compares the firstinformation object with the second information object stored in theknowledge base 570, and if they are the same, connects the firstinformation object to the second information object, and stores theadditional information stored in the knowledge base 570 and the firstinformation object in the bookmark storing unit 540. If the sameinformation object as the first information object of the information ofinterest to the user is not stored in the knowledge base 570, theinformation object identifying unit 580 newly registers the firstinformation object as the second information object and provides a URIto the newly registered second information object. Thereafter, the webinformation collecting unit 550 periodically collects web data in orderto obtain the additional information about the first information objectand the second information object and stores the collected web data inthe knowledge base 570. The information object identifying unit 580periodically updates the first information object and the secondinformation object based on the collected web data and maintains andadministers the bookmark information.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an apparatus 600 for providing informationof interest to the user via a multimedia device 700, according to anembodiment.

Referring to FIG. 6, the apparatus 600 for providing information ofinterest to the user via the multimedia device 700 includes an indexinputting unit 610 for receiving an index of a first information objectabout the information of interest to the user, a bookmark searching unit620 for searching for the first information object from the bookmarkstoring unit 670 according to the received index, an additionalinformation reading unit 630 for reading at least one piece ofadditional information mapped to the first information object from thebookmark storing unit 670, an information selecting unit 640 forselecting additional information according to the type of the multimediadevice 700 from the at least one piece of additional information, and atransmitting unit 660 for transmitting the selected additionalinformation to the multimedia device 700. The apparatus 600 forproviding information of interest to the user via the multimedia device700 may include a format converting unit 650 for converting the selectedadditional information into additional information in a format accordingto the type of the multimedia device 700.

The apparatus 600 for providing information of interest to the user viathe multimedia device 700 may further include a bookmark recommendingunit 690 including an information object analyzing unit 691 foranalyzing the first information object stored in the bookmark storingunit 670, a preference calculating unit 692 for calculating a user'spreference from the first information object, and an information objectextending unit 693 for transmitting a third information object having auser's preference greater than the predetermined threshold value of thesecond information object stored in the knowledge base 680 andadditional information about the third information object according tothe calculated user's preference to the transmitting unit 660.

In addition, other embodiments can also be implemented through computerreadable code/instructions in/on a media/medium, e.g., a computerreadable medium, to control at least one processing element to implementany of the above described embodiments. The medium can correspond to anymedium/media permitting the storage and/or transmission of the computerreadable code.

The computer readable code/instructions may be recorded/transferred incomputer-readable media including program instructions to implementvarious operations embodied by a computer. The media may also include,alone or in combination with the program instructions, data files, datastructures, and the like. Examples of computer-readable media includemagnetic media such as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape;optical media such as CD ROM disks, DVD disks and Blu Ray disks;magneto-optical media such as optical disks; and hardware devices thatare specially configured to store and perform program instructions, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random access memory (RAM), flash memory, andthe like. The media may also be transmitted over a transmission mediumsuch as optical or metallic lines, wave guides, etc. including a carrierwave transmitting signals specifying the program instructions, datastructures, etc. Examples of program instructions include both machinecode, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher levelcode that may be executed by the computer using an interpreter. Thedescribed hardware devices may be configured to act as one or moresoftware modules in order to perform the above-described embodiments.

Although a few embodiments have been shown and described, it would beappreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made inthese embodiments without departing from the principles and spirit ofthe invention, the scope of which is defined in the claims and theirequivalents.

1. A method of collecting information of interest to a user aboutmultimedia content, the method comprising: receiving first content aboutthe information of interest to the user, among the multimedia content;collecting metadata of the first content by using a uniform resourceidentifier (URI) of the first content; extracting at least one firstinformation object including a schema according to a search categoryfrom the metadata; and storing the first information object in a firstdatabase.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: collecting webdata from an external multimedia service including a web service byusing a uniform resource locator (URL); extracting at least one secondinformation object from the collected web data; storing the extractedsecond information object and additional information about the secondinformation object in a second database; and mapping the firstinformation object to the second information object.
 3. The method ofclaim 2, wherein the mapping of the first information object to thesecond information object comprises: comparing a URI of the firstinformation object with a URI of the second information object;registering the first information object in a first database if thesecond information object, which is the same as the first informationobject, does not exist in the second database; connecting the firstinformation object to the second information object if the secondinformation object, which is the same as the first information object,exists in the second database; and storing at least one piece ofadditional information about the second information object and the firstinformation object together in the first database.
 4. The method ofclaim 3, wherein the first information object and the second informationobject comprise at least one piece of goods information, areainformation, and broadcast program information.
 5. The method of claim4, wherein the collecting of the web data comprises: periodicallycollecting web data in order to obtain the additional information aboutthe first information object and the second information object, whereinthe mapping of the first information object to the second informationobject includes periodically updating the first information object andthe second information object based on the collected web data.
 6. Themethod of claim 5, wherein a bookmark is used to receive the firstcontent by using a representational state transfer (REST) or a simpleobject access protocol (SOAP), the metadata of the first content iscaption information, and at least one of a keyword extraction, a taganalysis extraction, or a semantic extraction of a micro format is usedto extract the first information object.
 7. A method of providinginformation of interest to a user via a multimedia device, the methodcomprising: receiving an index of a first information object about theinformation of interest to the user; searching for the first informationobject from a first database according to the received index; reading atleast one piece of additional information mapped to the firstinformation object from the first database; selecting additionalinformation according to the type of the multimedia device from the atleast one piece of additional information; and transmitting the selectedadditional information to the multimedia device.
 8. The method of claim7, further comprising: converting the selected additional informationinto additional information having a format according to the type of themultimedia device, wherein the transmitting of the selected additionalinformation includes transmitting the converted additional informationto the multimedia device.
 9. The method of claim 8, wherein thetransmitting of the selected additional information to the multimediadevice comprises: analyzing the first information object stored in thefirst database; calculating a user's preference from the firstinformation object; and transmitting a third information object havingthe user's preference greater than a predetermined threshold value amongat least one second information object which is extracted from web dataand stored in the second database that stores additional informationabout the at least one second information object, and additionalinformation about the third information object according to thecalculated user's preference to the multimedia device.
 10. The method ofclaim 9, wherein at least one of a representational state transfer(REST) and a simple object access protocol (SOAP) is used to search forthe first information object.
 11. An apparatus for collectinginformation of interest to a user about multimedia content, theapparatus comprising: a bookmark inputting unit inputting first contentabout the information of interest to the user, among the multimediacontent; a metadata collecting unit collecting metadata of the firstcontent by using a URI of the first content; an information objectextracting unit extracting at least one first information objectincluding a schema according to a search category from the metadata; anda first database storing the first information object in a firstdatabase.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11, further comprising: a webinformation collecting unit collecting web data from an externalmultimedia service including a web service by using a URL; a webinformation analyzing unit extracting at least one second informationobject from the collected web data; a second database storing theextracted second information object and additional information about thesecond information object in a second database; and an informationobject identifying unit mapping the first information object to thesecond information object.
 13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein theinformation object identifying unit compares a URI of the firstinformation object with a URI of the second information object, if thesecond information object which is the same as the first informationobject does not existed in the second database, registers the firstinformation object in a first database, if the second information objectwhich is the same as the first information object exists in the seconddatabase, connects the first information object to the secondinformation object, and stores at least one piece of additionalinformation about the second information object and the firstinformation object in the first database together.
 14. The apparatus ofclaim 13, wherein the first information object to the second informationobject comprises at least one piece of goods information, areainformation, and broadcast program information.
 15. The apparatus ofclaim 14, wherein the web information collecting unit periodicallycollects web data in order to obtain the additional information aboutthe first information object and the second information object, theinformation object identifying unit periodically updating the firstinformation object and the second information object based on thecollected web data.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the bookmarkinputting unit uses a bookmark through at least one of arepresentational state transfer (REST) or a simple object accessprotocol (SOAP), the metadata of the first content is captioninformation, and the information object extracting unit uses a keywordextraction, a tag analysis extraction, or a semantic extraction of amicro format.
 17. An apparatus providing information of interest to auser via a multimedia device, the apparatus comprising: an indexinputting unit receiving an index of a first information object aboutthe information of interest to the user; a bookmark searching unitsearching for the first information object from a first databaseaccording to the received index; an additional information reading unitreading at least one piece of additional information mapped to the firstinformation object from the first database; an information selectingunit selecting additional information according to the type of themultimedia device from the at least one piece of additional information;and a transmitting unit transmitting the selected additional informationto the multimedia device.
 18. The apparatus of claim 17, furthercomprising: a format converting unit converting the selected additionalinformation into additional information having a format according to thetype of the multimedia device, wherein the transmitting unit transmitsthe converted additional information to the multimedia device.
 19. Theapparatus of claim 18, further comprising a bookmark recommending unitcomprising: an information object analyzing unit analyzing the firstinformation object stored in the first database; a preferencecalculating unit calculating a user's preference from the firstinformation object; and an information extending unit transmitting athird information object having the user's preference greater than apredetermined threshold value among at least one second informationobject which is extracted from web data and stored in the seconddatabase that stores additional information about the at least onesecond information object, and additional information about the thirdinformation object according to the calculated user's preference, to themultimedia device.
 20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the bookmarksearching unit uses a REST or a SOAP.
 21. At least one medium comprisingcomputer readable code to control at least one processing element in acomputer to execute the method of claim
 1. 22. At least one mediumcomprising computer readable code to control at least one processingelement in a computer to execute the method of claim 7.